Category: The Art of Writing
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Have you ever caught yourself thinking you could be a better writer? Having a healthy amount of humility in one’s own work is of course, normal. Doing a simple retrospective, or ‘retro’ for short, on your writing projects can help you save time, money and ultimately a lot of self-doubt through your writing career.

Ah, the dreaded middle of your novel – always a challenge during any novel-writing endeavor. But when its slowing effects impact your prized daily word count during the concentrated NaNoWriMo period, the results can be discouraging – even devastating. As your excitement, tempo, and flow wane, you may find yourself stuck in the difficult work of writing the middle of a novel without knowing how to go about it.

Woo-hoo! Starting tomorrow, we’ll be in sunny L.A. at the Writer’s Digest Novel Writing Conference. We’re excited to attend, and proud to be a sponsor – and few of you out there have asked what sessions we’ll be attending during the three day all-things-novel extravaganza.

Below is a handy dandy guide of the sessions where we’ll be, each covering unique facets of the novel-writer’s journey. Have any session summaries you’d like us to share – let us know @TheRightMargin

Preparing for NaNoWriMo at Litquake

Like last year, Litquake, San Francisco’s 17-year-old literary festival, held an insightful panel on The Art of the Novel this past Saturday.

The panel provided an inspiring push to prepare for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) next month. As I plan to write my first NaNoWriMo novel in less than two weeks, I attended the panel and found the following as key takeaways. NaNoWriMo’s own Grant Faulkner moderated Ramona Ausubel, Jan Ellison, Sarah Ladipo Manyika, Ellen Sussman, and Gina Frangello with a series of engaging questions to help the writers in attendance learn from the panelists. I found the following talking points inspiring or helpful in my journey towards NaNoWriMo. If you want to learn more, leave me a comment below or reach out to the individual panelists on Twitter or Facebook.

“The novel is the barometer of the health of our culture.” — Grant Faulkner